“What are your terms, Blacklock? Don't be too hard on an old friend,” said he, trying to carry off his frank plea for mercy with a smile.
I should have thought he would cut his throat and jump off the Battery wall before he would get on his knees to any man for any reason. And he was doing it for mere money—to try to save, not his fortune, but only an imperiled part of it. “If Anita could see him now!” I thought.
To him I said, the more coldly because I did not wish to add to his humiliation by showing him that I pitied him: “I can only repeat, Mr. Langdon, you will have to excuse me. I have given you all the time I can spare.”
His eyes were shifting and his hands trembling as he said: “I will transfer control of the Coal combine to you.”
His tones, shameful as the offer they carried, made me ashamed for him. For money—just for money! And I had thought him a man. If he had been a self-deceiving hypocrite like Roebuck, or a frank believer in the right of might, like Updegraff, I might possibly, in the circumstances, have tried to release him from my net. But he had never for an instant deceived himself as to the real nature of the enterprises he plotted, promoted and profited by; he thought it “smart” to be bad, and he delighted in making the most cynical epigrams on the black deeds of himself and his associates.
“Better sell out to Roebuck,” I suggested. “I control all the Coal stock I need.”
“I don't care to have anything further to do with Roebuck,” Langdon answered. “I've broken with him.”
“When a man lies to me,” said I, “he gives me the chance to see just how much of a fool he thinks I am, and also the chance to see just how much of a fool he is. I hesitate to think so poorly of you as your attempt to fool me seems to compel.”
But he was unconvinced. “I've found he intends to abandon the ship and leave me to go down with it,” he persisted. “He believes he can escape and denounce me as the arch rascal who planned the combine, and can convince people that I foozled him into it.”
Ingenious; but I happened to know that it was false. “Pardon me, Mr. Langdon,” said I with stiff courtesy. “I repeat, I can do nothing for you. Good morning.” And I went at my work as if he were already gone.